Flashback
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: One drop, Kiera told herself. It would only take one drop...
**Flashback**

 _What the hell am I doing?_

It's a question I've asked myself more than once since arriving in the Vancouver of 65 years prior to my own time. What am I doing? Why am I working with Alec Saddler, a kid who I know from the present, and by doing so could be altering my own time? Why am I operating with the Vancouver Police Department, risking my true identity, and risking the lives of people who could dictate the present I return to? Why do I even struggle in what could be an entirely separate timeline? One that may have no means of returning me to the present at all. To a present that might not even be my own?

I ask that question a lot. And holding a vial of flash in my hand, looking at the yellow liquid swilling within as the rain pours down outside the apartment I've appropriated, I ask that question more than usual.

What am I doing? Why the hell am I holding flash, of all things? A drug that shouldn't even exist for decades, designed to treat a disease that won't be cured for decades, that, in the wake of that disease being cured, will allow this drug to become a disease of another kind and take thousands of people down a path that makes cures hard to administer? Why haven't I destroyed it yet? Why am I holding off?

 _One vial can't do much. Wait half a century, and then you'll get to see the good stuff._

If I wait that long. Is there a future me that's yet to be born? I'm still here, but as Kellog has shown, losing your ancestor doesn't seem to count for much.

 _One drop. That's all it takes. And there's no more to go around anyway._

One drop. It started off as one drop with Hannah. Then those drops became a trickle, a river, an ocean, until finally, she dropped herself. A memory that will be seared into my mind, with or without this drug.

 _One drop._

It's all I need. One drop. It's what I need. What I take out. What I do to myself.

 _One drop._

I feel…like I'm here, yet not. Here, everywhere, every _when_. The rain is near, yet distant. The lights of my room bright one second, and dark the next. It feels like I'm at a crossroads. One with infinite directions, to take me to infinite times. To take me to any memory. To my past, which is this time's future.

 _One drop._

Only one drop. One memory. I-

" _Mummy?"_

 _It's raining. Raining very hard. And-_

 _I'm home._

" _Mummy? Why's the sky crying?"_

 _My apartment. My home, of this future. My home, of my past. And-_

" _Sam?"_

 _And I can see him. Two years old. It's winter, and it's raining like there's no tomorrow. As if our home is the Ark, and only a flood awaits the world._

 _Flood. Liber8. The bombings, the wars, the-_

" _What's wrong sweetie?"_

 _Why this memory?_

" _Why's the sky crying?"_

 _It was raining when Hannah died._

" _The sky's not crying Sam. It's raining."_

 _It's raining now._

" _Raining?"_

 _It's raining then._

" _Yes, rain. It's what clouds do."_

 _When is it raining?_

 _Thunder rumbles. Is it thunder of the now, or the then? Is it in this memory?_

" _Why do clouds rain?"_

" _Well, sweetie, the sun turns water into clouds. And when those clouds get cold, they rain."_

 _He grabs my leg as lightning flashes. And-_

 _I can feel him. Oh God I can feel him. All these months, or years, or decades. At last, I can feel my son again._

" _Come on," I say. "It's nothing to be afraid of."_

 _I take him outside. The awning of the balcony covers us, even while a chilly breeze blows._

" _Mummy, I don't like it."_

" _It's okay, sweetie," I say. I hold out a hand and catch some of the water, bringing it back to us. "See? It's only water. Just like when mummy washes you."_

 _Why this memory?_

 _He smiles. And-_

Lightning flashes.

 _No._

" _Hannah!"_

Thunder rumbles.

" _Yeah," he says. I-"_

Th _e_ re i _s_ a _cr_ as _h_ an _d-_

"No!"

And I'm back. In the present. In the past of my memory.

 _No._

Back here, as the rain comes down. The memory lost. My son's voice, caught up in the storm. My son's touch, as sharp as lightning, removed from me. The flash, expended.

 _Sam…_

I get to my feet. Why that memory, I ask? Why did I go there? Hannah died in the rain. It's raining now. Why this memory, when-

 _Why's the sky crying?_

I stand at the window, and at last, understand. Why I raise a hand to the window as a tear escapes a cloud of my own. Why now, at last, I see what he saw.

The sky weeps.

And my tears are lost in the rain.


End file.
